Effect of groove-type chip breakers on twist drill performance

This paper proposes the use of grooves placed on the rake face of a twist drill to facilitate chip breaking and reduce drilling forces and chip clogging. A procedure to design grooves including groove geometry and orientation is discussed. Two sets of experiments are presented that determine the effect of grooves on the forces, chip morphology, and critical depth, and compare the life of the grooved and ungrooved drills. The grooves are found to be very effective in breaking chips and preventing chip clogging. Experiments show the positive effects of the grooves including lower drilling torque and thrust, lower chip evacuation forces, lower cutting forces, increased critical depth and increased drill life.